On The Train
by KnockturnSeller
Summary: Draco joins Hermione, Luna and Ginny on the Hogwarts Express to apologize.


Train Compartment

Synopsis: Draco joins Hermione, Luna and Ginny on the Hogwarts Express to apologize.

Head cannon goes off. A sign flutters to the ground. "I don't won Harry Potter but I do play in the Forbidden Forest.

Hermione wondered at the sight of the new students on the Hogwarts Express. They were all so young and she felt so old inside, like she was McGonagall in her first year of transfiguration class. As several giggling first years ran past her she turned to watch them, thinking of the time she was that young and so full of energy and innocent fun.  
After the last year and all she'd lived through, laughter was one of the luxuries she didn't seem to have anymore, just that determination burning inside that kept her going.  
More youngsters ran past her with happy giggles and she stepped aside to let them pass, looking down the train to see the deeply red hair of Ginny Weasley. Luna was right behind her, both of them smiling as they came closer then they were all hugging and saying how glad they were to see each other.

Ginny said, "You are looking good, Hermione."

She let out a sigh and said, "I'm afraid it's a bit of an illusion. I'm not feeling all that good inside, like I'm fragmented and held together with tape."

Ginny's face fell and said, "Sometimes I feel like I'm a painting and I don't recognize myself. But then I think of Harry and Ron and you and it makes me feel a little better. It's been so hard to keep going every day but Mum and Dad are always there encouraging me. When they do I feel all warm inside, long enough to make it through another day at least. How they have the strength amazes me."

Luna gave her usual half smile and said, "We all feel so much inside. But we have our friends and that's enough to make the world a good place to be."

"Let's find a compartment," Hermione said. "How's your father doing, Luna?"

"He says he'll have the first Quibbler out next week. I hope people like it," she said.  
"He's going to print all the names of the people that died. He's tried to find something nice to say for all of them."

"I wish him luck," Hermione said. She found an empty compartment and let Crookshanks out of his carrier to sniff around until he butted his head on her arm to get petted.

"Did you look at all the first years?" she said as she gave a good scratch behind her cat's ears. "Were we that young?"

Luna grinned and said, "We were, but that was a long time ago. We should make sure they do things that make them happy."

"The food trolley will be along in a little bit," Ginny said. "Candy and sweets should help."

"I hope so," Luna said. "I'm going to get some to see if it helps me feel happy."

As they chattered together a person walked by their compartment window, glanced in unseen by the three ladies and kept going. Then he stopped, staring straight ahead as he thought of what he was about to do and turned around.

He tapped on the window to the compartment and opened the door to see Luna looking mildly interested, Hermione staring hateful daggers at him, Ginny already had her wand pointed at him with a look that made his breath leave him even as he raised his hands,  
entered the compartment and sat down. Crookshanks arched and hissed then kept his yellow eyes fixed on him in a deathly glower as he growled and unsheathed his claws.  
Hermione was aiming her wand with a look that was fierce and dangerous. He looked at his feet as he tried to think of how to start out before daring to meet Hermione's baleful stare.

"You loathesome, foul, disgusting ... oh, just get out. What do you mean coming in here,  
Malfoy?" she bellowed.

Hermione wiggled her wand and, glaring at Draco Malfoy, said, "Ginny, I get the first hex," and made the tip of her wand circle while holding it aimed at his face. She looked like she was making up her mind what the worst thing she could do to the git daring to come into her compartment, the nerve to sit down right in front of her seemed to set her off with her scowl going murderous.

With his face going pale Draco Malfoy held his eyes on Hermione's, glanced to see Luna giving him a look that was hard for him to make out, then to Ginny's face tensed in barely repressed, well, something much worse than mere anger and turned back to Hermione. "Please, just don't do what you're thinking of dong right now though I'd deserve every bit of it. I only ask for a few minutes of your time. Notice I'm alone and I haven't pulled my wand out."

"You twitch your hand anywhere near it and they'll be picking pieces of you off the track for miles, you little ferret," Hermione growled.

"God knows you'd be right in doing it," he muttered. "I came to say I'm sorry for everything I did and everything I said. I got in over my head, thanks to my father, then I couldn't get out. I tried to kill you in the Room of Requirement then you turned around and saved me from the Fiendfyre. How can I ever put into words what I feel inside for that? What can I ever say in payment for my life, a life I didn't deserve to have after what I tried to do?"

"Oh, I think a promise of a long, drawn out, grisly suicide would just about do it,"  
Hermione said with the merest twitch of a smile. "Perhaps a stroll through Devil's Snare or getting immolated by a dragon. No, not that. Not slow enough."

Draco gripped his hands quivering in a cold sweat together to stop their shaking,  
glanced at his fingers to feel them tingling from the fear coursing through him and looked back at the woman that held his immediate fate in her hand and wand. "Like I said, I got in way over my head. I was taught that to be a Malfoy and a Pureblood was something to take pride in, something that made me better than those around me. I was told my whole life I was superior to the rabble wanting nothing more than to come begging at our manor doors for any scraps we might toss out for them. Father convinced me my fate was to join his cause, that I was his son and I should make him proud by becoming ... what I became."

His right hand drifted to the mark on his left forearm before he caught himself and eased it back onto his lap.

Hermione didn't lower her wand though the tip didn't twitch quite so much. Ginny was gripping her wand so tight her fingers had turned white, her face still flushed in rage at seeing the personification of Fred's death right in front of her.

Luna gently put fingers on Hermione's wand hand and said. "Let's hear him out. If you don't like what he says you can always curse his ears off later. He sounds like he really has remorse for what he did."

"The only remorse he has was getting caught on the losing side," Hermione said, her voice low and menacing in its tone.

"That's true also," Luna said, "but I'm interested enough to want to hear what he has to say."

Hermione flicked her eyes toward Luna to see the calmness and control she had,  
turned back to Draco and said, "You will keep your hands in front of you. One move,  
make the wrong muscle tighten and I swear there won't be enough left for your mother to recognize. You understand that right here and right now."

She lowered her wand a little then let it slowly ease down to rest on her lap, the tip still pointed at Draco and her eyes piercing in their steady, malevolent gaze.

"I will make no move that might make you nervous. Right now, to tell the truth, I'm doing all I can not to wet my pants," Draco said.

"Then you understand me well," Hermione said, no sympathy in her tone. "You may speak but the moment you show how much a git you really are, you go off on your usual supremacist rants ... I might let you crawl out of here with the limbs you came in with."

Ginny pushed her wand a touch closer to Draco's face and, with death in her voice,  
growled, "I won't, you self centered, cowardly git."

Draco nodded, careful to keep his shaking hands on his legs. It was all he could do to remain seated while staring at the wand tips pointing at him by two people that would as soon see him drawn and quartered as sneeze. Right then all he really wanted was to scream and run as fast as he could to escape but told himself he was no longer that coward. He'd come to this place to do what he had to do and kept himself as still as he could. At least on the outside.

"I said I was sorry for everything and I meant it," he said with a bit of tremor in his voice,  
"though that one word falls so short of expressing the self hatred and shame I have inside me. I tried to find a way to disengage from that madman but he would have killed my parents, he would have turned the Dementors loose on them and made sure I knew if I ran and I wanted to run so hard and so long I hoped I'd die in the attempt just to get it over with."

He took in a ragged breath, turned to Ginny and said, "I can't tell you how sorry I am for your brother's death. I know my words won't mean much but it's all I can say. I can only imagine the hurt and grief your family has gone through and I'm sorry you had to lose him. More than that I want to apologize for my father's actions. He put that diary with your books, he bragged about it, he was so proud of doing it..." and stopped at the look he got.

"Anything I can say will never make up for your pain, Ginny," he said. "If there was anything I could do to atone for all that has happened to you and your family, I'd do it.  
Nothing can make up for happened, I know that, but still, please. I can't even ask you to accept my apology for all that happened as it's not enough, but I am sorry for the grief my family has caused your family."

Ginny didn't flinch, didn't blink, and most certainly didn't lower her wand. She just stared at him though the rage boiling inside had calmed just a little.

"After The Dar ... Voldemort was defeated we were all quarantined under house arrest,"  
Draco said. "There weren't enough cells to gather up all the Deatheaters and lock them up. I suspect my father called in the last favors he could to be left at home before being called to trial. I expect him to spend time in Azkaban and I'll be glad of it. Frankly, I'm astonished I've been given permission to return to Hogwarts. I don't deserve it after all I did but I can't say I'm unhappy to not find myself in a prison cell."

Hermione took a breath and said, "Thank Harry. He put in a word to let you stay free though I personally would rather see you banished and your wand taken forever. I still can't believe he gave it back to you."

"Yes," Draco said softly. "He came by the manor when Father was being questioned. He just handed it to me. Didn't say a word, just stood there, reached into his jacket and gave it to me. I was so stunned I couldn't think of anything to say to him. Actually, I couldn't move for the longest time, I just stood there and looked at the wand in my hand, why I was holding it, what it meant to have it returned. I'm not sure I'll ever understand it."

Hermione's face softened a slight amount. "He told me it was for trying not to tell Bellatrix who he was in your manor. He also said it was his way of thanking your mother but he didn't say what that meant. Maybe she does. Someday you may be able to repay him for that but how that could happen is beyond me."

"I owe Harry a lot," Draco said, his voice now steady. "Having my wand back solidified so many things in my head. Him giving it back to me was the one thing above all else that made me see myself for what I'd become, what I'd allowed myself to become. I'm gong to tell you something I'll never tell another soul. I went to my room and cried like a baby for hours. That's what it meant to me then. Sitting here is what it means to me now."

He took a breath and told them, "The day after Harry gave my wand back I confronted my father. I won't tell all the things we said but the result is I'm a Malfoy in name only. I told my father I was ashamed to have his name and how I'd spend the rest of my life trying to live down what he'd done, what he'd coerced me into doing and all the things I did. I told him his life was nothing but fear and the reason for the mess he was in was his hanging onto his sanctimonious attitude then passing it on to me. He screamed at me, called me a blood traitor and a lot of other things and I pulled my wand on him. He just stared at it then at me and I told him, You know the evil this wand has done. Say another word and you'll find out for yourself.' I packed a bag and left. I'll never return to Malfoy Manor."

Hermione glanced at Ginny then at her wand. Ginny lowered it but kept it at the ready.  
Luna just looked back at her with the kind expression she always had.

"So, you want us to believe you are sorry. You want us to forgive you," Hermione said.

"There's not a chance of being forgiven and it would be an insult to all the suffering I was part of to ask," Draco said.

He sat there and looked at the floor, unable to meet the eyes looking at him. "I'll never make up for what I did, there's no way that's possible. I'm going to make my own life from now on, free of the insanity of that Pureblood posturing that was forced down my throat. I have a lot of things to make up for but I have no idea how to go about righting all the wrongs I'm guilty of. And those that died, how can anyone right that wrong? All I can do is to turn my back on the past and try to make a future that is worthy of the wizarding world, that is worthy of what Dumbledore stood for. I'll never forget the look he gave me in the Astronomy Tower. After letting Deatheaters into Hogwarts and being there to kill him he still cared, he still wanted me to ... wanted me to make a change."

He took a deep breath and said, "I want to thank you for having the patience to hear me out. If there's ever anything I can do to make up for all the hateful and bigoted things I said to you over the years, just let me know. No, don't do that. That's the selfish side of me coming out again. Just to be able to walk in the same school as you and not have my head cursed off is all I can expect. I want to promise you I'll be different from now on. I wish you the very best in your endeavors, Hermione, if I can use your first name. I hope you achieve everything you want in life."

He glanced at Ginny whose wand had lowered and was pointed away from him for the first time since he sat down. "Ginny, there's nothing I can ever do or say that will make up for your hurt but I'm sorry for everything. I know I've already said that but I'd need to say it a million times to have it mean anything and I deserve to be thought of as a self-  
centered, cowardly git. When I saw your mother take on Bellatrix to protect you, that was the most awesome thing I've ever seen. If you have the slightest bit of her power you are a most formidable witch. I respect you."

Ginny's wand almost came out of her hand she was so shocked at what she heard. She tried to say something but the words escaped her, nothing she could say would convey the emotions inside her at that moment. She managed a nod.

"Well, once again my thanks and appreciation for listening to me," Draco said. "I should leave you in peace. I hope you have a great year at Hogwarts."

He stood up and had his hand on the door when Hermione cleared her throat.

"See you in class," she said.

He turned and said, "Not likely. I've agreed to repeat sixth year with a few seventh year classes thrown in. I have a lot of wasted time to make up for. Maybe I can try out for the Quidditch team, if they'll have me that is, but I'm probably going to be too busy studying."

Hermione looked right into his eyes and said, "Then I hope you have a good year,  
Draco." A moment later she added with a twitch of a smile, "If I can use your first name."

There was silence after Draco closed the door and wandered off down the train.  
Hermione and Ginny just looked at each other in shocked surprise after witnessing the strangest event they'd ever imagined.

Luna smiled at them both and said, "He was very frightened. Still, he can't admit he was wrong, it's not all his father's fault, you know. I think I'll see where the trolley is. Would you like some chocolate frogs?"

Head Cannon goes off. The sign reads: "Please Review." 


End file.
